1979 veuve magnum

stumbled on a bottle of this for cheap but am saving to open for something special? anyone familiar, the info online is sparse at best about the 79 vintage. if anyone has any info that would be great.

Mitch,

I imagine you are talking about a Magnum of Veuve Clicquot Champagne. Nice "stumble"

Enjoy,
Gary

it is in fact the champagne in question, but i was looking for notes on it and can find nothing. any oenophiles familiar with this year? anything?

Any recent acquisition of a 28 year old wine is a risky proposition. You generally have no idea how the wine has been cellared since its release. That being said, 1979 was a very good year for champagne. Champagne ages very gracefully. The fact that you have a magnum is a big plus, as wine seems to age a bit more slowly in larger bottles. If this is La Grande Dame, that too would be a big plus. My advice would be to make sure that you have a back up bottle or two, in case things don't work out when you pull the cork.

Since it is vintage, it will last better than the regular yellow label. If it is Grande Dame, then even better. If the bottle looks full and shows no sign of leakage, you should be ok. If it is a white champagne, then it should taste more chardonnay/caramel than new. I have not had an older rose champagne, so I dont know how that flavor would change. Let us know how it is.

-Will

Mitch,
Check out the links below. On the back label might be when the wine was disgorged our taken off the lees. So if it was disgorged was in 1996 say, it was on lees in the bottle for 17 years. Bollinger R.D is similar in that it goes through a very long aging process on lees which adds more complexity. Moet & Chadon did this with Dom Perignon Enotec line of old vintages being released now, wines from the 60's, 70's and 80's. The reason that I would recommend looking for the disgorment date is that it might not be that old as everyone thinks and could be in very good shape. Because it's in magnum makes it that much better.

http://www.veuve-clicquot.com/data/links/file_187.pdf

You can find additional information on other vintages at:

http://www.veuve-clicquot.com/data/links/file_187.pdf

Enjoy,
Craig
Grand Cru

Wine Spectator does not provide tasting notes, but gives the La Grand Dame a 96 rating, the Gold Label Vintage Reserve a 88 rating, and the Rose Reserve a 89 rating.

Enjoy it.